One should not misinterpret my stress on Lukács’ Ontology. I do not want to say that History and Class Consciousness is unimportant, problematic and outdated and should not be read. To the contrary: in chapter 5 of this book, I show the contemporary relevance of Lukács’ History and Class Consciousness by engaging with how his concept of reification inspired Axel Honneth’s critical theory of recognition. We can use both approaches for a critical theory of reified/alienated media in the digital age. So my point is that one should not only read History and Class Consciousness, but also Lukács’ other works. His philosophy is immensely rich and a thorough engagement with it is very rewarding.
2.1.4. The Ontology of Social Being’s Context
The Ontology was written in the years 1964–1970 and was Lukács’ final work (Fehér, Heller, Markus and Vajda, 1976). In his study of the Ontology, Nicolas Tertulian argues that Lukács’ aim in this work was ‘to reconstruct ontology as the fundamental discipline of philosophical reflexion’ (Tertulian, 1988, 247) and to work out ‘a really universal theory of the categories of existence’ (249). It is an extensive book comprising of 1,460 pages in total, separated into two volumes in the German edition. Some chapters of the Ontology have been translated into English and published in three parts on a total of 436 pages, which shows that large parts have remained thus far untranslated. The first part of the English edition focuses on Hegel (Lukács, 1978a), the second on Marx (Lukács, 1978b), and the third on labour (Lukács, 1978c). The second German volume (Lukács, 1986b) contains a part called Das Ideelle und die Ideologie (The Realm of Ideas and Ideology) that consists of three parts: Das Ideelle in der Ökonomie (The Role of the Ideal in the Economy), Zur Ontologie des ideellen Moments (Toward an Ontology of the Ideal Moment), and Das Problem der Ideologie (The Problem of Ideology). It also contains a section on work that has been translated (Lukács, 1978c). Given that there is both a focus on work and ideas and on labour and ideology in one volume, it is clear that the Ontology promises insights into the relationship of the economy and culture.
Lukács’ doctoral students Ferenc Fehér, Ágnes Heller, György Markus, and Mihály Vajda (1986) published their notes on the Ontology, in which they formulated dissatisfaction with the work concerning concepts such as nature, objectification, reflection, value, freedom, and progress. They also note that it remained an unfinished work because Lukács, who only partly agreed with his students’ criticisms, died before he could carry out any planned revisions. But overall, he was not convinced by his students’ criticisms. Rather ‘at the end of his life, Lukács was persuaded that it was in his Ontology that he had furnished the essential and definitive form of his thought’ (Tertulian, 1988, 248).
Georg Lukács as a Communications Scholar
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